System for recording sales.



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SYSTEM FOR`REGOHD|NG SALES.

(Application mea Mar. 18,1902) (NoV Model.)

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MILES A. STONE, ...OF LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS.

SYSTEM i-oR RECORDING entes.

SLIEUEFICATON forming part of Letters Patent No. 716,956, dated December 30, 1902 Application led March 18, 1902. Serial No. 98,809. (No model.)

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Be it known that I, MILES A. STONE, a citizen of the United States, residing at Little Rock, in the county of Pulaski and State of Arkansas, have invented certain new Improvements in Systems for Recording Sales; and l do declare that the following specification and drawing are a full, clear, and exact description of the same.

The invention to be hereinafter described relates to a system for recording sales, more especially in department stores and the like doing an extensive retail business; but it is to be understood that it is equally applicable to other lines of business where a daily or a periodical account is kept of sales or business transactions; and it has for its object the simpliication of the systems now in use, the saving of time in posting the accounts, and the arrangement and preservation ofthe original sale or account slips in condensed forni for ready reference and verification of sales.

It is well known that a department store doing a credit business will ordinarily have from' two hundred to one thousand or more charges each morning to go to the ledger, and with the system now in vogue it is necessary to have every item from the sale-slips, as well as the name and address of the purchaser, copied into the sales-book orjournal and thereafter posted to the ledger, a system ot' daily routine work ou the part of the bookkeeper necessitating the expenditure of much time and labor with theliability always present where repeated copying is done of mistakes creeping into the sales and other books. Not only this, but disputes are not infrequent on the part of customers as to the accuracy ot' their accounts as appearingin the salesbook or journal or ledger, all of which is obviated by the system to be hereinafter described.

In the drawing the figure represents a book with sales-slips attached embodying my invention. Said book I will hereinafter denominate the sales-book.

The sales-book is one ofv a complete set of books and consists of blank leaves suitably bound together, each page of which is preferably divided into a plurality of blank columns A, divided by rulings a, for carrying the amount of sales as footed up on the salesslips B, and the head of said columns is provided with cross-rulings a, immediately below which at the top of each blank column is Amount brought forward from preceding column. In connection with the sales-book I provide duplicate sale-slips of a width corresponding substantially vvith the blank columns A in order that the original of said sales-slips may be appropriately attached at its head or top in the blank columns A, each original slip overlying the next slip belowit, as shown, so that only a small margin at the bottom of the sales-slip shall be visible, as at l), all the said sale-slips in any one day or determined period being arranged under the date thereof and for convenience alphabetically arranged. Each sale -slip will contain the name and address of the purchaser, the date, and salesmans number or letter, and an itemized statement of the sales made, as shown clearly by the top sale-slip in the drawing. The total amount of sales of each ticket is footed up at the lower exposed margin thereof and secured by its top portion to the blank column A with the extension-column a to the right, into which and on line with the exposed lower margin the total of the charge is extended." The figures at the bottom eX- posed margin of each sale slip, as at c', are the ledger folios, and the initial E is the bookkeepers check for entered. These original sale-slips should be posted to their respective accounts each day. Thus the sales book becomes as essential to a complete set of books as the journal, cashbook, or any other book from which charges or credits are taken. The extension-columns being footed up daily shows the total of the months or years business, as does any one of the other essential books. The sales-book thus compiled from the original sale-slips containing theitemized accounts of sales not only avoids the extensive copying into the sales-book of the name and address of the purchaser and the items of sale, but as each slip overlies another, as described, less space is occupied in the sales-book, time and errors of copying are avoided, and the original saleslips are preserved for ready and convenient reference, a duplicate of which was given the customer at the time of purchase. To illustrate: The column on the left in the figure TOO contains twenty-one accounts, containing, say, one hundred and eighty items. This would fill at least two full pages of an ordinary sales-book, Whereas only one column is Occupied by the new system as described, resulting in an obvious saving of space; and whereas under the system heretofore in vogue the copying of such items, names, and addresses would occupy much time of the bookkeeper the original sale-slips can be attached to the sales-book, as specified, by an ordinary office-boy and then posted, as in the ordinary sales-book. This book being one of record will naturally be kept in the safe or vault, and thus secure from fire not only the account of sales, but the original sale-slips, Which under the old system after the long tedious Work of copying them are usually put in bundles and stored under a desk to gather and hold dust and until some customer demands the original charge before he Will pay his account. Then the dust is transferred to the hands and clothes of the bookkeeper, While he loses time and patience and gets behind in his Work looking for the desired charge. With myimproved system he would be able to produce the original saleslip in a moment. As an illustration, suppose Mr. L. claims he did not get the item charged to him on August 15, 1901, amounting to one dollar and forty-live cents. The

bookkeeper would simply turn to that date in the improved sales-book and run his iinger down the column of extensions until he came to the amount of one dollar and fortyive cents, raise the slips above it, and show Mr. L. the original charge as made by salesman No.

Having thus described my invention, What I claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

1. In a system of recording sales, duplicate sale-slips of uniform size showing the itemized and total amount of sales in any case with the total amount of sales and date carried to the lower margin of said slips, a salesbook the leaves of Which are provided With extension or account columns, the original of the sales-slips being secured to the leaves of the sales-book and overlying each other With the lower margin exposed to show the total amount of sales on said slip adjacent the eX- tension or account column of the sales-book into which the totals only are transferred, substantially as described.

2. In combination, a sales-book having eX- tension or account columns on the pages thereof dividing the said pages into blank columns, sale-slips of uniform dimension secured in the blank columns one over the other with the lower-margins exposed and with the side edges of said slips adjacent the account or extensioncolu mns, said sale-slips containing an itemized account of sales footed to a total at the bottom exposed margin of the slips and Which total is carried into the account-column adjacent the total on the eX- posed margin of the sales-slips, whereby the original sale-slips may be preserved and itemized copying avoided, substantially as described.

MILES A. STONE.

`In presence of- W. F. BIGGER, WM. L. MCKNEW. 

